Janz

I have this arrangement on my BMC. Be careful as using the early type two hole starter motor means the oil filter has to be mounted at a slight angle due to the bowed out end cap. Both starter motors (two hole & three hole), fit the BMC 1500 D so you can swap 'em...

Yeah, I won't know 'til I get it in front of me. I'm just changing a wheel on my car & if I get time, I'll post up some readings... Thanks BTW...

Yes..! Success, Mr Brooks! That worked, however it only worked with a replacement starter motor. So I'm assuming the motor is fried. The only motor I could get has been borrowed but at least I can move. It still does really strange stuff if I try it from the ignition &/or with the isolator wired in though but I can live with I'll test my motor & get back to you tomoz. Thanks for your help..!

...lighting, just phone torch. If we can't get it running we'll pull it back on the ropes. Need bed 'cos been drinking. If we can get it to B'ford the Bulgarian will have a spare alternator. Thanks for the reps & how to bypasd the isolator & ig switch 👍

Thanks for replies. Got my brother coming tomoz to see what he can do. We're going to charge the battery & try what you said. I went over there earlier to prepare. He's gonna bring a dvm. The wiring from the ignition switch is a real mess. From what I can see, the glow plug wire has snapped at the crimp terminal & the pos has fused to the neg where the switch was loose. Got that cleaned up. Got instrument panel lights working but need some blade fuses. Got the starter to turn the engine, very slowly but it's turning. Couldn't do anymore 'cos I have noĺ

Thank you. You did your best for me & I really appreciate your time. You're right in that I have multiple issues that all share common parts - the battery(s), the isolator switch, the ignition switch, earth. The problems are not confined to the engine, or even the engine bay but occurring in the cabin - the pump, the USB ports, the interior lights. Something is very wrong with the earthing I think. My mate did tell me this. It's the only thing that every other thing shares without conditions. For example, in every position of the rotary isolator except all circuits off, turning the ignition key will eventually cause all the interior LED lights to come on & the USB charge points to cut out but this doesn't happen all the time. It's intermittent. The only way I can see this happening is if the earth of the LEDs is being somehow energised by the ignition switch. The problem may lie in the fuse box. I have no idea. It must be happening somewhere where the common parts converge in close proximity, such as behind the inst panel. The rotary isolator switch is different in that it has three pins rather than two. I have just been looking at replacements. I think the engine is also not going to earth because nothing seems to work as it should - the alternator wasn't charging the battery, the solenoid will fire but it's not powering the starter, the glow plugs took at least a minute to get hot & they aren't the only things getting hot. Everything connected to the rotary isolator switch gets hot & all earth wires on all batteries. This is why I don't think it's the battery(s). They seem to take & deliver a charge ok. I can't be more specific but I charge the starter battery & it works. Even adding a jumper battery won't turn the starter/engine. It was a couple of days ago but now, nothing. The only thing I can think of doing is totally isolating the starter battery, bypassing the ignition switch, earthing the engine to its cradle, seeing if anything electrical still works on the engine & replacing that which doesn't. But look, I do really appreciate you racking your brain over this. I know it is a real ball ache. You're a patient, logical man & you have a good heart. Right now I just want to get drunk & forget about this head pressure for a day or so. I have all sorts of problems outside of the boat world - legal problems, housing problems, cashflow problems... I'm actually surprised I'm not a gibbering wreck. The boat was my plan of escaping those problems but it hasn't worked & it's now become another problem which is taking way too much of my attention & yours. I'll leave you guys alone for a bit & in a few days when I've read through your notes & isolated the engine department from the rest, I'll let you know my progress if any...👍

Think my battery is a Yuasa, 110ah. I'm not going to get anything flash. If it isn't the battery & the battery going flat is just a symptom of something else, it has had a hard time recently being charged & discharged by me trying to either solve this problem or lights/pumps coming on randomly due to the isolator, or me leaving lights on for security before I knew my former neighbours. All this probably would have been taken up by the solar but I had to take that offline after the storm ripped all my wooden frames apart & blew them & the panels into the canal & now because I'm in a dead spot at the back of some playing fields by a school & I can't even move... In the worst case scenario, at least buying a new battery will mean I have a spare that can maybe be revamped if it hasn't been totally trashed by whatever my electrical problem is. Unless I do something about it in the next few days, I'll be stuck for there for another month. I'm fairly used to living on the cheap but I never thought I'd have half a dozen different problems to have to sort out, so I'm just going to try & get my boat back to somewhere where I can get my car close by so I can get the rest of the work done on it because all this is just taking up too much time. The money I can lose but time isn't on my side.

A lot has happened. My solar panel (two), blew off in the storm. I lost one & recovered the other. Since then I have been having battery charging problems. But, even before that I had to charge my batteries twice getting the boat here. I thought the alternator was faulty but it wasn't that that killed the battery. It was my water pump. When I got the boat it was dry, so I filled it with water & connected the pump but the pump didn't work so I fixed that but I had a dripping tap, so what was happening was once the tap leaked out enough water, the pump would kick in maybe once an hour for about thirty seconds. Anyway, I went back to the boat a few nights ago & the pump was going & it wouldn't shut off, so I unplugged it. Then every time I tried to start from the key, all the lights would come on, so I tried to fix the isolator switch. I just cleaned all the corrosion off the contacts. After that, it wouldn't start from the key, so I bridged the terminals to get it started. Now it doesn't start from the key or via the solenoid. It was turning the engine very slowly & blowing the fuse behind the ignition switch. Now it just clicks & the red & green lights go dim. Both pos & neg cables get red hot. It'll probably do something else next week... So much has happened that it's impossible to diagnose anything. Just looking at the wiring behind the inst panel, I'm surprised it hasn't burst into flames...

I'm just going to buy a new one, Tony. I've wasted enough time & energy trying to get things done on the cheap. As soon as I get my money in my account, I'll get the best starter battery I can afford. It will either be equal to or better than the one I have now. I'm basically out of time for messing with things now. It will be hard not having any money for food for the month but I don't really have a choice.

I'm going to get the starter off again tomorrow. It's a real peach to take off despite being only two bolts. The oil filter (Bosch), has to come off first. Then once the bolts are loose the starter can be teased out from under the fuel cut off. There is only one way it will come out & it has to be rotated, pulled up slightly & then slid under the fuel cut off. The difficulty is the top bolt hole clearance. It just clears the fuel cut off but only after being lifted, rotated & slid. I will take some photos of everything once it's out of the way. I noticed some odd looking anomalies & also it could all use a good clean, so that's what I'll do. I'll also remove the alternator & give that a good clean & then I'll be able to get them tested. The engine is definitely a 1500. It's clearly marked on the block & on two plates. I might even buy some new gaskets & clean out the bilge. One for the sump pan & one for the rocker cover & get a new diesel filter & a new oil filter. I might as well go all out on it seeing as I won't be moving for a while. What can CRT say or do? I've broken down & there's nothing I can do about it. If they want to write me a snotty letter, so be it... Whilst everything is out I can sort out the instrument panel. You'll love that. It's the last word on bodges, just a mess of missmatched wires, crimps & multi-coloured electrical tape - it's hideous & looks like several idiots have made a total pigs ear out of it over several years. I'll find a local motor engineering place & just blow this months money on getting the alternator, solenoid & starter motor perfect if I can't get 'em working myself. Then all I'll need is a new battery & hopefully this nightmare will end. I have had enough of messing about. It wouldn't be so bad if I was back down in Brentford because at least I can get my car nearby but where I am is the middle of nowhere so I can't even get stuff to & fro. I had to use a wheelbarrow to get my batteries across the playing fields through the mud so I'm just wanting to be done with this problem.

That's how this whole sorry saga started, Tracy. I thought I'd ran the battery flat about ten days ago, so I hooked up an old car battery I keep as a spare & bridged the terminals. It fired up & I forgot all about it but that was the last time it started properly. I even put it all down to the storm blowing off my solar panels. One was gone & the other I had to pull up from the water but that was obviously just excuse making on my part. I had a few old British cars years ago that used to give me similar problems but I would just buy the new bits because I was working & spares were cheap back then. In this case, something has worked loose, snapped, fused... I don't know. I don't have the specialist knowledge for boats or even cars. My knowledge of engines, starting & charging systems & electrics is basically small bore, air cooled, 2 or 4 stroke motorcycles &/or gardening tools - lawnmowers, strimmers, leaf blowers etc. So no plumbing or water cooling, no alternators, no starter motors, solenoids, solar etc etc. Anything else & I'm pretty lost. Everything on my boat has been bodged or doesn't work. That's why I despise the whole crimp connection thing. The previous owner just connected everything randomly with a box of Wilko crimps & most things don't even have an earth, just a positive connection & the earth wire just dangles next to it. The boat was an abandoned project & now I know why. I can undo most of the bodges & connected all the things that were disconnected like the water, the calorifier the gas etc but I still don't understand the cooling system, how the engine & connections are earthed, the solar the inverter & so on. Still it'll please some of the people on here who think I'm trash, that I'm having problems. Like the woman who told me to get a job & the fella I'd had no interaction with at all, who asked whether I borrow my mate's tyres to get my car through an MoT. I bet they're having a right old laugh now... I would never do that to someone when they're down on their luck. Right now this is beating me & I don't like it but I'll swot up on Tony's site & learn some stuff, so it'll hopefully get a bit easier. Trouble is, there's so much to go wrong & it all shares some degree of common connections like the ignition switch or the isolator switch & even though they are both bodged I don't know enough about what they do to fix them & if they are beyond repair, I can't afford to buy new ones, so I'm just stuck. Any attempt to fix will risk doing something that might make something else not work. It's a mess...

Yes it was that one from the starter to the -neg battery post. I just don't understand how it won't even turn the starter motor. I'll get the meter on it tomoz. I'm vexed & I want a beer... Thanks for your replies to my posts...👍 Mine's the two bolt starter, Tracy. It has an eccentric bolt & lock nut which I think adjusts the distance the solenoid fires the copper core...

I'll pick up a multimeter tomorrow, Tony. Both the neg & pos cables were getting hot at different times. The solenoid was machine gunning when I adjusted the eccentric bolt on the starter but I couldn't get the starter to spin at all. Thanks for your help though. I'm giving up for today 'cos I'm losing the light here & my battery is down to 12.3v. I guess heating up the cables has done most of the charge I put in earlier... Thanks...👍

Still getting smoke from the solenoid, the - neg battery cable to the starter is getting hot. I'm not winning this...

I'm getting a loud clunk when I turn the key but no starter motor activity. I can turn the engine via the crank pulley with a large wrench, so it hasn't seized. I connected a jump lead from -neg to the block & from +pos to the solenoid earth but no movement from the starter. I'm starting to think you're right & the battery is toast...